Friday, February 19, 2016

The Secret Army Stumping for Ted Cruz

The senator’s super PACs have launched an unprecedented ground effort in South Carolina and seem intent on going where few super PACs have gone before—door knocking.

We all know super PACs have permanently changed the face of American politics. But in South Carolina, right now, we’re getting a preview of the unprecedented ways they can alter a campaign.

South Carolina, as you may know, is kind of a big deal. It has a large population—4.8 million people—and a bad reputation because it’s a place where candidates love to break out their dirtiest tricks.

Or, in the case of Ted Cruz’s super PACs, their most experimental. The cluster of well-funded super PACs boosting Cruz’s candidacy is trying out a new tactic in the Palmetto State, indicating the extent to which super PACs are encroaching on traditional campaign turf.

And it has Cruz’s rivals scared.

Said super PAC, called Keep the Promise—which is actually sub-divided into several different PACs, each funded by a different billionaire family—has blithely tossed the traditional super PAC playbook to the winds. In fact, they’ve taken on typical campaign operations: gathering voter data, targeting likely Cruz supporters, and knocking on thousands of doors to get out the vote.

[...]

... Keep the Promise staff explained that the group has been door-knocking across the state, in a few targeted regions and counties, since last November. In early January, those door-knockers started focusing on persuasion: identifying likely Republican primary voters who favor an Evangelical Christian candidate, knocking on their doors, and having conversations aimed at persuading them to back Cruz.

“What we are doing right now is what I dreamed about doing as Scott Walker’s state director,” said Dan Tripp, who formerly helmed Walker’s South Carolina operation and now runs the show there for Keep the Promise. ...